Nintendo Switch 2 to Feature NVIDIA Ampere GPU with DLSS

[AleksandarK]

The rumors of Nintendo's next-generation Switch handheld gaming console have been piling up ever since the competition in the handheld console market got more intense. Since the release of the original Switch, Valve has released Steam Deck, ASUS made ROG Ally, and others are also exploring the market. However, the next-generation Nintendo Switch 2 is closer and closer, as we have information about the chipset that will power this device. Thanks to Kepler_L2 on Twitter/X, we have the codenames of the upcoming processors. The first generation Switch came with NVIDIA's Tegra X1 SoC built on a 20 nm node. However, later on, NVIDIA supplied Nintendo with a Tegra X1+ SoC made on a 16 nm node. There were no performance increases recorded, just improved power efficiency. Both of them used four Cortex-A57 and four Cortex-A53 cores with GM20B Maxwell GPUs.

For the Nintendo Switch 2, NVIDIA is said to utilize a customized variant of NVIDIA Jetson Orin SoC for automotive applications. The reference Orin SoC carries a codename T234, while this alleged adaptation has a T239 codename; the version is most likely optimized for power efficiency. The reference Orin design is a considerable uplift compared to the Tegra X1, as it boasts 12 Cortex-A78AE cores and LPDDR5 memory, along with Ampere GPU microarchitecture. Built on Samsung's 8 nm node, the efficiency would likely yield better battery life and position the second-generation Switch well among the now extended handheld gaming console market. However, including Ampere architecture would also bring technologies like DLSS, which would benefit the low-power SoC.



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[ilyon]

With DLSS™ and RTX™ this will crush poor Series X and PS5.
These consoles still have no support for DLSS, remember...

 

[Mussels]

Not surprised, FSR won AMD the console wars so of course Nvidia want to get in on that action.

It's their closed source drivers that cause them problems, but the switch is a slow-changing platform that can work within those limits

With DLSS™ and RTX™ this will crush poor Series X and PS5.
These consoles still have no support for DLSS, remember...

It doesn't stand a chance against them, if it's meant for the switch it's phone level hardware - DLSS doesn't run any better than FSR would, it just tends to look slightly better.

The Orin chip its based on is a 50W part that might compete with the consoles if it used DLSS and they were native res, but the lower power variant in the switch will be <10W and not even come close. It's not meant to.

 

[Lionheart]

Pretty excited for the Switch 2, always wanted a GameCube 2.0 out of bias sake but it didn't sell the best. They have to have backwards compat though.

With DLSS™ and RTX™ this will crush poor Series X and PS5.
These consoles still have no support for DLSS, remember...

You make me f*king cringe

 

[Camm]

With DLSS™ and RTX™ this will crush poor Series X and PS5.
These consoles still have no support for DLSS, remember...

You've managed a post count of 3 a year since you joined TPU and you decide to gift us with this level of inanity? Dude.

 

[Kaleid]

"Built on Samsung's 8 nm node, the efficiency would likely yield better battery life"

So perhaps not purchase the first version of Switch 2 either.. if it comes out next year you'd expect 5 or 6nm

 

[R0H1T]

So Nvidia wasn't even bothered to get the best efficiency/balanced ARM cores from 2 years back & why Ampere? Gameplay or first party games aside, which of course is a major pull for Nintendo, these would probably again be poor VFM for the hardware in it.

 

[Mussels]

"Built on Samsung's 8 nm node, the efficiency would likely yield better battery life"

So perhaps not purchase the first version of Switch 2 either.. if it comes out next year you'd expect 5 or 6nm

Thats guesswork at this time, and the node used isn't a magic bullet that guarantees things to be better.

 

[3DVCash]

Gameplay or first party games aside, which of course is a major pull for Nintendo, these would probably again be poor VFM for the hardware in it.

That's pretty much Nvidia's MO of late.

 

[Vayra86]

Thats guesswork at this time, and the node used isn't a magic bullet that guarantees things to be better.

We do know how Samsung 8nm boosted Nvidia's Ampere line up TDPs to unseen heights.

This is part of the reason Ada's efficiency looks so good, too.

I mean wow. Nvidia finally found a way to get even more inferior parts to market. Bloody bottom feeders

 

[Kaleid]

Thats guesswork at this time, and the node used isn't a magic bullet that guarantees things to be better.

Correct, but they will unlikely stay at the original node anyway tho

 

[ixi]

Ohh boy, look how they (we know who) masssacred ma boy... nintendo and nvidia, sadge. That means weak hardware for high price, ehh :{


Ampere not 4xxx series, god dammit. At least give latest generation...

 

[Assimilator]

This is actually a scenario in which it makes complete sense to use Samsung over TSMC. We're not talking about monster GPUs dissipating hundreds of watts, where a worse node can increase that consumption by tens of watts and completely change the worst-case cooling equation; we're talking about tens of watts being increased by single digits, where the worst-case is known (no overclocking) and the cooling system provisioned accordingly. Given TSMC is perpetually backlogged with orders, and Samsung probably isn't, from a manufacturing viewpoint (cost and actually getting units produced in a reasonable timeframe) the latter is arguably more attractive.

It will be interesting to see how this Ampere derivative performs, and if DLSS is an always-on thing for "Switch 2". If so it would be a major win for NVIDIA in increasing adoption of that technology, although given it's Ampere not Ada the latest implementation of DLSS is off the table.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Wow. The blatant negativity on display in these comments is really something to behold. Kinda pathetic and sad.

The reference Orin design is a considerable uplift compared to the Tegra X1, as it boasts 12 Cortex-A78AE cores and LPDDR5 memory, along with Ampere GPU microarchitecture. Built on Samsung's 8 nm node, the efficiency would likely yield better battery life and position the second-generation Switch well among the now extended handheld gaming console market. However, including Ampere architecture would also bring technologies like DLSS, which would benefit the low-power SoC.

If this is actually what we get, the NS2 will be an excellent gaming platform. The current Switch is 7 years old and it's STILL completing very well with the current gen consoles, so clearly super amazing specs are not the ultimate factor in the success of a gaming platform.

 

[konga]

This is actually a scenario in which it makes complete sense to use Samsung over TSMC. We're not talking about monster GPUs dissipating hundreds of watts, where a worse node can increase that consumption by tens of watts and completely change the worst-case cooling equation; we're talking about tens of watts being increased by single digits, where the worst-case is known (no overclocking) and the cooling system provisioned accordingly. Given TSMC is perpetually backlogged with orders, and Samsung probably isn't, from a manufacturing viewpoint (cost and actually getting units produced in a reasonable timeframe) the latter is arguably more attractive.

It will be interesting to see how this Ampere derivative performs, and if DLSS is an always-on thing for "Switch 2". If so it would be a major win for NVIDIA in increasing adoption of that technology, although given it's Ampere not Ada the latest implementation of DLSS is off the table.

Tens of watts? The switch launched with something like a 5W power limit on the SoC when in handheld mode and a 10 or 11 watt limit when docked. We're talking about very low wattages here, which means for one, this still isn't going to be a super powerful console, and two, efficiency still matters. +50% better efficiency going from samsung 8nm to TSMC 4nm would still mean 50% better battery life, or maybe 50% more performance at the same battery life. It doesn't matter if we're talking about tens of watts or single digit watts, the story is still the same. It's all relative.

Personally, I am doubting the rumors that T239 will be manufactured on Samsung 8nm. It would be really disappointing if that ends up being true, but I guess we should be used to Nintendo disappointing us by now.

 

[john_]

This is good for AMD too. I believe Sony and MS will ask for a SOC that will be way superior in RT performance, meaning AMD will have to realize that being the worst in RT, isn't a viable option. No matter how much it wants to focus on AI and pretend that raster is still the king. Image a Switch beating future Sony and MS consoles in RT. AMD will completely lose the console market if it doesn't became serious in RT.

Now Switch going Ada is a necessity to also fight the new X86 handheld consoles. I wonder if Nintendo will start investing more in visuals in the future.

 

[R0H1T]

Image a Switch beating future Sony and MS consoles in RT.

You're talking about a handheld console vs full blown, plugged in, ones? Not gonna happen unless we still have unicorns & pots of gold on the other side of a rainbow!

 

[lexluthermiester]

but I guess we should be used to Nintendo disappointing us by now.

How so? The current Switch is the best selling system for the previous AND current gen consoles. The games are excellent, the experience is as seamless and smooth as anyone can ask for. Where have they disappointed "us"?!?

 

[john_]

You're talking about a handheld console vs full blown, plugged in, ones? Not gonna happen unless we still have unicorns & pots of gold on the other side of a rainbow!

I have seen a unicorn on a rainbow this morning. Haven't you?

Anyway, AMD needs to improve it's hardware in RT. Now this is Ada, so probably future AMD based consoles would probably beat it. Handhelds like Rog? Probably not or will be close. AMD needs to realize that it needs to improve considerably performance of RT in it's future RDNA architecture. If not Switch 2, another gaming platform, even a typical desktop console based on Nvidia hardware, could be a disaster for AMD's image in consoles. And AMD needs those billions from Sony and MS, not to mention games build for it's hardware first, or Radeon will end.

 

[progste]

Since they're staying on Nvidia's ARM chip I'm hoping for full retro-compatibility like the gamecube-wii era, it would be foolish of them not to do so.

 

[john_]

So Nvidia wasn't even bothered to get the best efficiency/balanced ARM cores from 2 years back & why Ampere? Gameplay or first party games aside, which of course is a major pull for Nintendo, these would probably again be poor VFM for the hardware in it.

Probably we have a repeat of the scenario for the first Switch. Nvidia offers an old, made for something else, ultra cheap, good enough SOC to Nintendo, Nintendo says thank you and we get a console. Staying at Samsung's 8nm means, no redisigns from Nvidia, ultra low cost for Nintendo.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

This is good for AMD too. I believe Sony and MS will ask for a SOC that will be way superior in RT performance, meaning AMD will have to realize that being the worst in RT, isn't a viable option.

There's nothing in a 5W 7nm SoC that will be forcing Sony's, Microsoft's and AMD's hand on RT.
RT also doesn't scale down linearly on resolution and consumes a lot of system RAM capacity and bandwidth, neither of which Nintendo is known to invest a lot on.


Furthermore, people ought to realize that the optimization and proportion of hardware dedicated to RT in AMD's GPU architectures are highly influenced by Sony and Microsoft themselves. They can't have the luxury of shipping a console with a 600mm^2 discrete GPU with its own 384bit bus of 24GB GDDR6 VRAM consuming 350W.
Consoles are budget machines and traditional rasterization techniques are immensely more power and cost-effective at displaying high quality graphics than raytracing. That's the case now and was even more so in 2020.

If Sony and Microsoft want better raytracing performance on their future consoles, or even dedicated tensor cores, AMD will provide as such. But the console makers will do so at the cost of losing transistors and die area that would otherwise be spent on programmable shader processors, or e.g. last-level-cache, or Infinity Fabric glue to allow for chiplets, etc.

 

[Nioktefe]

Seems like a stretch that this chip will be used as is. At least if the form factor stays the same

Everything that's needed is on the chip, there's just a bit too much of everything on this chip :
12 A18 cores at 2.2Ghz max : Coming from 4 a57 at 1Ghz on the original
2048 gpu core at 1.3Ghz max : Coming from 256 at 384Mhz
256 bits LPDDR5 bus : Coming from 64 bits DDR4

Bonus : AV1 encode/decode up to 2x 4K60, 22 UPHY lanes shared between pcie, usb 3.2 and MGBE

Source : https://www.nvidia.com/content/dam/...in/nvidia-jetson-agx-orin-technical-brief.pdf

So yeah I wouldn't mind if they slashed this chip in half as it would likely increase efficiency further than just clocking down or disabling units.
However as long as castrating this chip is cheaper than making a smaller/newer one, I guess that's what Nintendo will choose.

 

[kapone32]

This is good for AMD too. I believe Sony and MS will ask for a SOC that will be way superior in RT performance, meaning AMD will have to realize that being the worst in RT, isn't a viable option. No matter how much it wants to focus on AI and pretend that raster is still the king. Image a Switch beating future Sony and MS consoles in RT. AMD will completely lose the console market if it doesn't became serious in RT.

Now Switch going Ada is a necessity to also fight the new X86 handheld consoles. I wonder if Nintendo will start investing more in visuals in the future.

Except that Sony and MS worked with AMD to develop the GPU that is in the PS5 and Xbox1. Those handhelds like the Ally and the ones from the other off brands have shown that AMD is well positioned in the Gaming space. The Switch2 will not have Steam, GOG or Epic that all of those handhelds support. As much as Nintendo has an entrenched customer base the fact that you can play Armored Core 6 or BG3 on those handhelds is more (for me) the draw than Ray Tracing. support. I suppose it would be nice to see a Mario Game in RT though.

 

[progste]

Let's be real guys, RT is a useless gimmik and no one cares about it besides us tech nerds.
In a few years every engine will have a comparable built-in technology and RT will be forgotten like PhysX.

What matters for the switch 2 is for it to look good enough and run current games, while also retaining the portable aspect. (would be nice if their joysticks aren't defective this time around...)